They said, Tesla said —

Ex-workers: Supervisors at Tesla factory routinely called us the n-word

Enlarge/ The Tesla Factory is an automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California, and the principal production facility of Tesla. The facility at the foot of the Fremont Hills manufactures the Model S and X.

Further Reading

In a new lawsuit, three former Tesla workers claim that they were routinely harassed and subjected to racial epithets during their time at the Fremont, California, factory.

The men, who are all African-American, allege that shortly after they began work in 2015, their co-workers and superiors began taunting them and called them "n****r" on a regular basis.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Tuesday, is the second such suit brought this year on behalf of former Tesla employees represented by Lawrence Organ, a local civil rights attorney. Organ did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.

In a lengthy statement sent to Ars by a Tesla spokesperson who requested anonymity, the company said: "No employee should ever feel harassed or mistreated based on their race, gender, beliefs or anything else," adding that "In situations where Tesla is at fault, we will never seek to avoid responsibility. But in this instance, from what we know so far, this does not seem to be such a case."

The plaintiffs have sued not only Tesla, but also Citistaff Solutions, West Valley Staffing Group, and Chartwell Staffing Services. The latter three companies, none of which immediately responded to Ars’ request for comment, are temporary employment agencies that place workers at Tesla, among other employers.

Further Reading

According to the lawsuit, one of the men, Demetric Diaz, told his supervisor in October 2015 that he did not appreciate being harassed in this way, telling him specifically, "that’s not right."

His supervisor apparently replied, "If you don’t like how you’re treated, your time here is going to end."

Diaz responded, "You’re going to fire me?" to which the supervisor replied, "You’re a temp, anyway."

After he complained, Diaz said this "racist abuse dramatically increased in frequency."

The other plaintiffs, including Demetric Diaz’ father, Owen Diaz, and another man named Lamar Patterson, faced similar alleged abuse, including at least one claimed instance of co-workers telling Owen Diaz to "go back to Africa."

In the statement, Tesla added that it first learned of these allegations "when they were relayed to us secondhand by two media outlets."

Tesla also noted that it "refused" Organ’s "demand" for a "seven figure payment in order to resolve the matter" in the case from earlier in the year, Lambert v. Tesla.

"When the attorney filed the suit earlier this year, it was timed to coincide with a carefully planned media blitz in an attempt to create a disingenuous narrative that was at odds with the facts," the statement continued. "Similarly, the attorney has once again contacted the exact same media outlets and published a press release to put out a story that is critical of Tesla. The timing of these new claims and the manner in which they are being publicized is notable, particularly coming from the same attorney."

The company also noted that none of the men have "ever brought a claim about their time at Tesla until now," well over a year after their employment ended.

"Normally, when claims like this are made, the employee first makes a complaint to a regulator such as the [Department of Fair Employment and Housing] or [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]. Strangely, that never happened in this case," the company added.

"Thus far, the only somewhat relevant evidence we have found is an e-mail from Owen Diaz to his supervisor from October 2015 in which Mr. Diaz claimed that a coworker was yelling and making aggressive comments. That e-mail made no mention of the use of any racist language or epithets."

UPDATE 4:30pm ET: Lawrence Organ told Ars in a phone interview that "it appears that the hostile work environment is more widespread that we'd first understood it to be and there are other examples now of people complaining to supervisors and conduct continuing."

"Publicizing [the cases] empowers others to come forward and vindicate their rights," he continued. "What would have happened in Harvey Weinstein's case if no one came forward? It's only when people are brave enough to come forward that change occurs. To give Elon Musk the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he didn't understand the extent of the problem at his facility."

Organ also said that while he did make a settlement demand in the Lambert case, it was actually "six figures," and not "seven."

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar